Stick vacuum cleaner reviews

We test 25 stick vacuums in the CHOICE labs, including models from Bosch, Dyson, Electrolux and Hoover.

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Last updated: 12th June 2015

Petite and easily hidden away, stick vacuums take up much less room than their full-size cousins. New designs and technology mean improved dirt pick-up and running times, so they're also a much better buy than past models. We test 25 stick vacs, priced between $39 and $899, to tell you which are:

In the 2015 reliability survey we ask owners to tell us what they thought of the vacuum cleaners they own; rating them from excellent to terrible. We've used this information to give each brand an owner satisfaction rating.

Note: This includes all vacuum cleaners, except for robot vacuum cleaners.

To test pet hair removal, we embed cat hair in the carpet and, as with the dirt pick-up test, vacuum it to a set pattern and speed. We rate the results based on how much cat hair is left behind after the test. Where supplied, the turbo brush or power head is used for this test; otherwise, we use the standard cleaning head. Pet hair for testing supplied by Woof Cat & Dog Grooming, Bondi, NSW.

We've recently introduced a new quick clean test to simulate typical everyday cleaning. We measure the dirt removal from carpet as above, but after just four passes over the carpet rather than the full 10. The score is shown in the table for recently tested models, but as we didn't do this test for previously tested models that are still available, we haven't yet incorporated it into the overall score.

The overall score is made up of hard floor dirt pick-up (30%), ease of use (30%), cleaning corners and edges (15%), pet hair removal (15%) and dirt removal from carpet (10%). All models scored 100% in the scratch test.

For those models that separate from the stick into a handheld vacuum, we disperse pebbles and sand throughout the front and rear floor of a car and evaluate how well they pick up these materials. This is not counted towards the final score, as not all vacs are 2-in-1 products.